Hold on you said and I held on

Go – Plumb)

 

I have been holding on for a long time. One way I deal with pain and loss is to pretend I’m fine and to shove it away into a box and try to cram the lid on top. It may not be the most recommended method, but you have to use the tools in your toolbox, not the tools in your neighbor’s toolbox. And this method is not completely ineffective. I have a lot of unhappy days, but I also am healing gradually and finding more opportunities for joy. Sure, I haven’t even seen a really young child since moving here except for one time at work for a few seconds, but recently I have gotten to hang out with a super cute almost 2 year old and her 5(?) month old sister. It is pure joy…until they have to go home…

 

Each breath breathed means we’re alive and life means that we can find a reason to keep on getting by – Breathe Superchick

 

I didn’t use to realize that life was a choice. It was just the way it is. I have since realized that it is a sign of my resilience that I am still alive and staying that way. It means that I have figured out how to get by. I am strong. I work really hard sometimes to make it, but I keep going, because that is what I feel like I need to do. I keep breathing and finding a way to keep getting by. It is very difficult realizing that my dreams have died. It is still painful and I still cry sometimes, but I am alive. But on Saturday a 6-year-old told me I needed to kill myself. Is it obvious even to someone so young that I am not worth it? I know she’s 6 and I’m 25 so I should know better, but it is the same message but just a little more blunt than I received at school so it is harder to pretend that didn’t happen. I feel like I try so hard only to fail. Why keep trying if it just means more pain later? I so desperately want to get back to pediatrics and especially to get back to my friends at Children’s, but I don’t know if I can take the pain again. The wounds aren’t quite so raw anymore, but neither have they healed enough to have strong bold scar tissue growing to better withhold against tough things. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words may break my heart.

 

Some storms claim you. Some will rename you. – Be My Rescue Nichole Nordeman

 

This whole song has some really good imagery. Sometimes when the storm comes through you can’t escape it. Sometimes caught in the storm you get soaked, but when it ends you dry out and everything is back to how it was before. Sometimes though, you can’t go back to how it was before. As much as I would love to be the bubbly girl I was before everything happened, as much as I would like to be the confident girl I was before the abuse, those ships have sailed. Now I am different. I connect differently and I act differently than I did before. Although I guess it is kind of strange to label a girl with social anxiety to the point of near silence and potential selective mutism as confident, that is how I saw myself. I was not confident in *every* realm – socially I was not confident, but I was confident in who I was and in my abilities. That was before I had internalized that I was stupid, worthless, not going to make it, unwanted…It takes time to learn those things, but it is near impossible to really unlearn those things. I miss who I was, but at the same time, I recognize that I can never be that girl again and that who I am now is not all bad. I might be at a dead end career-wise and really be struggling with dissatisfaction about my job, but with God all things are possible and maybe God has wonderful plans for my life. Maybe someday I will be a success story. The more pain and obstacles in the way, the more inspiring the success stories are, so maybe God has something really cool waiting for me…but I have to remember that even if not, God is still good. Even if I never get to be a success, God still loves me and I still will one day get to go to forever home…just not today and probably not tomorrow either.

 

Sorta kinda related, but I recently read a story online that I really connected with. I don’t remember the whole thing, but long story short, this girl experienced a painful loss. A few years later she was shopping for gingerbread ice cream treats and they weren’t available at the store. Somehow in that moment it sparked a reminder of her loss and those ice cream treats were the most important thing in her world and she was crumbling in pain in the store, but it wasn’t really about the treats, it was about the loss…that is kind of where I am. I am doing just fine, minding my own business when all of sudden some unassuming tiny pebble becomes a giant mountain I can’t climb. It is exhausting.

Am I really living, or am I just existing?

(Save Me – JJ Heller)

 

There are a lot of negative thing I could say I’ve learned in the past few months, but despite the pain I think I have learned some positive things too…I’d probably rather not learn but escape the pain, but that wasn’t a choice and it does me no good to stay lost in the pain forever.

 

In March I learned that I am not just a source of parties for my coworkers and that they and other people really care. Maybe some of it was just the human desire to see everyone else smiling, but they were so amazing that week of spring break when I had just not matched the first time. They provided me distraction and let me just take care of me. I think I also learned that being around kids is a really good influence for me. My best friend made time for me and one of her sons said I should pray…she knew me at the time when I hardly spoke at all, so she is the last person who would put any pressure on me at all to pray out loud, especially when I was already struggling, but she looked at me to see if she needed to intervene and I did it myself. And I ate that evening. My best friend is one of the most important people in my life and I don’t know where I’d be without her.

 

In April I learned that my friends care and so does God. On March 17^th, I wasn’t ready to even believe that God cares. By April, through the kind support that I really didn’t deserve of a couple of my friends, I was moving from *MAYBE* God cares to starting to believe that God does care. My friends are incredible. I was upset and not being very nice to them and they continued to be patient and keep loving on me. I was devastated and overwhelmed and exhausted and that probably made it really hard to be around me, but they continued to include me. Sure, they weren’t perfect, no one is, but they went way beyond the call of duty to do their best to support me.

 

In May I learned that graduating wasn’t going to end the nightmare that was my abuse history at school. I had been counting down for well over a year, but with the grief, the lights went out and graduation lost its luster. Okay, so really that happened right away in March, but I think graduation actually coming really brought it home that this wasn’t going away. I do know someday I need to face that pain, but I am not ready yet.

 

In June I learned why self-harm was such a strong addiction. Even unintentional physical pain is exceedingly effective in treating (okay, covering up) emotional pain. I fell really hard one day, and it hurt. Now in November I think I am finally feeling fully healed from that…a little stiff maybe from not really being able to move without pain for so long, but otherwise doing well. I am not going to fall into that trap, but I definitely understand why it is so appealing.

 

In July I learned everything happens for a reason even the worst life brings (blessings – Laura Story). After months of getting minimal sleep, having to work a late evening shift until 11pm was not fun, but wasn’t nearly as hard as it would have been otherwise. Instead of being pretty much just a warm body by 9, I definitely do not have fun, but I am able to pretty much be competent all night.

 

In August I learned that God was listening to my prayers and with me even if he wasn’t saying yes to my prayers requesting he take me home. Life was still hard, but God reminded me of his presence when he might not have given me everything I wanted, but did give me a few things that I really needed. I needed the stability of choosing a church and was totally overwhelmed and had no idea how to pick and he helped me make a decision.

 

In September I learned that I can make friends that aren’t just the leftover people no one else wanted.

 

In October I learned that my weight can’t make me happy and isn’t an ideal surrogate marker of my mental status. Actually, yesterday or maybe it was two days ago I heard somewhere that it is ideal to heal physically and mentally at the same rate. I now see how that could be really helpful.

 

So yeah, that is 2/3 of a year of learning…that is totally crazy. A lot of the time it still feels like just a few days ago that the sun came crashing out of the sky, but at the same time it feels like I have been living with this forever. I still cry sometimes. I am still mourning my loss. I am still trying to learn how to hope that it won’t always be like this. Interestingly, I was reading recently something that cited a study that found that at a certain amount of weight loss whether intentional or unintentional, humans begin to compulsively exercise. This isn’t necessarily eating disordered behavior induced, but simply a strange phenomenon found in studies. It made me think about this spring. I did lose a lot of weight, but I also found that one of the only things that made me feel at least a little less bad was to be in motion. The best ways to get even a little food in my mouth was to either make it a social event or to do to do something mildly active. I was walking around the block over and over just to get the tiny amounts of food and water into my body that I needed to survive. I know medically it means I am not getting nearly enough fluids in when I didn’t even need to pee every day…TBH, I think someday I may end up with kidney problems not just from the “dry” times, but also from the times I have practically drowned myself ’cause OCD said to drink like crazy to prevent germs staying in my body. Anyway, the point is that I wonder if what is happening is partly that I lost enough weight that exercise became compulsive and I was dealing with extra anxiety because of that when not in motion or if it was really that exercise helped control the grief…IDK…